Till the end of time, a Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden Fanfiction

Chunin Exam Part 2.1

"Bloody hell, it's cold." Naruto shouted over the raging storm. His voice only barely reached his comrades, because the wind carried his words away.

Team Seven found itself in the middle of a snowstorm. Snow swirled around them and turned the world around them into a white hell. Unfortunately there was absolutely no cover as they were in the middle of an open filed without trees or a cave. What used to be a quiet landscape with lush grass and small bushes had turned into a world of ice. The snow laid several feet high and covered anything underneath it. Moving turned out to be relatively difficult as ploughing through the snow was quite strenuous.

"Don't be such a toe dipper. Better stay alert, we don't want to get surprised by one of these white snakes again, don't we?"

"I think right now I'd prefer the snake..." Sakura interrupted the the argument and pointed to the left. An enormous polar bear was staring at them, eyes blinking dangerously. Bloody hell, we've got the worst of luck.

Without warning the best sped towards the team, mistaking them for his next meal.

"Oh shit, that thing is huge." Sakura said as the polar bear got closer and shuddered not only due to the cold. "How does this one come here anyways? They're not native and even if they were, they wouldn't be so large. Did they breed them specially for this exam?"

"I don't know." Naruto said. He took out a kunai from his pouch and held it protectively in front of him. "And I'm quite sure I wouldn't wat to. If we don't want to get eaten, we have to kill it instead. Running is not an option, the bear's just too fast. We have to face it directly."

"At least we get a lot of meat when we kill it. That would solve at least one problem." Sasuke said, also fingering his weapons. When the bear was close enough all three sprung into action. The first kunai was aimed at the bears head, missed it though and buried itself into a furry shoulder. The bear growled in pain but didn't stop running. Instead it was running even faster as if it had realized that its advantage laid in close combat. Now it was also clear which one of the three was the first target. With his black hair, Sasuke was the least camouflaged. Even the snowflakes covering his head didn't prevent his raven hair to stand into a stark contrast to the surrounding whiteness.

After he had separated himself from the others to keep them away from the attack, Sasuke's hand flew through several hand signs.

A short firestyle jutsu later, a smoking, furry corpse laid in front of them in the snow. "That was fast." Naruto was clearly impressed by Sasuke's fireball.

"Yeah, that was great." Sakura agreed. "Let's skin the bear and cook it. We can use the fur for blankets and camouflage."

Cooking the bear turned out to be very difficult. Not only did none of them have any experience with slaughtering an animal, they also had nothing to cook it with. A firestyle ninjutsu would have given the necessary heat for a fire, but they had nothing to burn. Grilling the flesh directly under the stream of fire would have only led to a burned bear.

"I can do the skinning." Naruto volunteered. "Never done it before, but hey. Can't be too difficult, now can it. It's basically just separating the fur from the rest." He grapped a kunai and plunged it into the bears neck. Then he awkwardly moved the kunai upwards to cut the skin. He used too much strength though and nearly cut off the entire head, making a mess out of himself and the dead bear.

"Gosh, that's disgusting." He exclaimed when he looked at the bloody mess that used to be the neck of the bear. Only few tendons and small fibres of muscle still connected the head with the rest of the body. Naruto's entire arm was covered in blood and the snow around him was now dyed crimson. He wasn't ready to give up though and was already in the process of returning the knife into the bears body when a hand on his shoulder stopped him.